Language takes "Ragtime" out of park setting

Cast and crew members of a production of "Ragtime" are searching for a new venue and funds to stage the show after its producer, the Wilmette Park District, canceled it last week.

Rehearsals for the Tony-Award-winning musical had gone on nearly two months in anticipation of a July 10 opening by the Starlight Theatre at the outdoor Wallace Bowl in Wilmette's Gillson Park.

Two of the show's unpaid cast of 40 included husband and wife Bill and Alice Brown of Arlington Heights. Both were shocked when they received the news.

"We each were notified by telephone, and in many cases it was just a message left saying, 'The show has been canceled, don't show up for rehearsal tonight,'" Alice said. "There has been no official e-mail to the cast (from the park district) explaining exactly why the show was canceled."

Thomas Grisamore, executive director of the Wilmette Park District, disputes that the cast wasn't notified properly, saying his office had issued press releases and that the producer directly contacted the cast.

"Ragtime" is a 1998 musical based upon E.L. Doctorow's 1974 historical novel of the same name which focuses on injustices and racism in the early 1900s faced by three families headed by a wealthy white manufacturer, a Jewish immigrant and an African American musician.

According to Drew Cohen, president of Music Theatre International (MTI), which licenses "Ragtime," the park district had asked to use substitutions for racial language considered derogatory toward African Americans.

MTI and "Ragtime's" authors denied the suggested changes because they felt the language was accurate and honest in context of the era. So the park district pulled the plug on the production.

"This unfortunately occurred much later than we wished it did," said Grisamore about halting the show after so much rehearsal.

Grisamore said that about June 12, park district administrators became aware of the language in "Ragtime" and expressed concern that other visitors to Gillson Park might become offended by the racial slurs taken out of context.

"There's no way to control the amplified sound that occurs in the Bowl and it has an impact on all of the other people who are in the park," Grisamore said about the free production. "Also we looked at it more in-depth and we found the show was really laced with profanities."

Grisamore said the park district briefly considered posting warnings around the park about the show's content. He said they also looked into staging the show in other venues, but found the costs to be prohibitive.

"I was disappointed that they didn't allow this to take its course," said Bill Brown, who was double cast in "Ragtime" as automaker Henry Ford and as the bigoted fire chief Willie Conklin - the character spewing a good portion of the racial epithets in question. "It would have been really exciting in this venue to challenge folks to look at where we are versus where we were then."

Alice Brown was cast as the American anarchist Emma Goldman in "Ragtime," and she finds its odd that both her character and the show were censured.

"I think (Goldman) would say that the Wilmette Park District has sold its own community short in believing that they would not be capable to process the information and understand the message behind the show," she said.

The Browns have taken some consolation that so many people in the theater community have offered their support. But in order to stage "Ragtime," the now producer-less show needs to pay to re-obtain the rights to the material and to rent a new venue.